Is there anyone in this world who does not want to be happy? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Throughout our lives, everything that we do and aspire for is to acquire this happiness. Be it following our passions or running after paychecks, we are ready to do it all to make us happy. Happiness is not only a necessity but also the essence of life. From a Zinger burger to a play station, from dancing all night to watching a sunrise, anything and everything can make us happy. Then why isn’t the world happy? Why, in a world comprising of all such beautiful marvelous things, are we not happy? With the population of around 8 billion, the concept of happiness still obscures each and every human. Nearly 400 million of the world population is under depression. Where did it all go wrong? Among the numerous reasons that are there, I would like to draw your attention to, which is according to me, the important reason of them all as it involves the youth.
To the majority, the concept of happiness is an illusion. An illusion based on other people’s perceptions. An illusion where the people are the majority stakeholders of your happiness, not you. An illusion in which our happiness is directly proportional to the number of likes on our Facebook pictures or the number of followers on Instagram. In today’s world, the social image has become more important than anything. And in the efforts of keeping up with that image, we are deluded from the reality. We are so significantly far from reality that we have become socially awkward. Instead of interacting with the people around us, we look for acceptance from the people on the internet who are insignificant in our lives. In this process of acceptance from everyone else, we turn a blind eye to our parents or the people who actually matter to us. In such a scenario, which most of the youth found themselves in, a person is left all alone. A person lacks the sense of security and love in the form of his family; he is unable to justify the void in him that was his very own creation. To the strangers in social media, he is as insignificant as he was before. I’m not saying this happens to everyone but a major percentage of the youth is victimized by the glittering and glamorous desirable social image on the internet. So why does the youth not learn a lesson and straighten their priorities in life? This brings me to my second point.
As a teenager, we are rebellious. We decide what we want and we prioritize things for ourselves irrespective of its consequences. We choose our poisons and we live with it. Technology has been the major contributor to depression due to fatigue, anxiety, sleep disorders, and many more symptoms. Being a technology-savvy generation, we are always obsessed with our smartphones or laptops irrespective of its shortcomings. Whether it is because of games or social media websites or the internet itself, we’d be consumed in its day or night for very few fruitful reasons. In a fatigued state of mind, our brain does not respond properly, leading to anxiety attacks. We become anxious and start stressing about numerous little things that constitute our life. This anxiety building within is one of the primary reasons why the youth does not talk or share their feelings. Then comes a point when we are so distant from everyone that we have no one. No one to cry out for help. No one to save us from the dark abyss which we’re slowly creeping into. This very state of depression consumes nearly a whopping 10-15% of the world.
What we need to do is balance everything out. Yes, social media is important, socializing is very much necessary but that’s not it. Anything in excess is dangerous. Get out of the virtual world and enjoy the reality. Happiness is an inside job. Don’t get so engrossed in a stupid game or the stuff posted in social media that we forget to put our mind into things that are much more important to us. Likes on your photos or followers on a page are something that just greedily feeds our ego. There is so much in all of us than what we all realize. Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself. Give yourself the time you deserve and explore yourself. If life gets a little too rough, ventilate your feelings. We all look in the gutter, try sometimes to look into the stars. There is an old saying that sharing your feelings doubles the joy and halves the sorrow. It's OK to not be OK, as long as you don't stay that way. Remember life was supposed to be hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it. After every night, there is a day and after every day, there is a night. That’s life. In the end, I’d like to conclude by telling that the mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
